How recent New York 'Pathomap' highlights the prescience of moviedom

That the New York subway transport system may contain the stuff of countless sci-fi thrillers would hardly surprise that city’s intrepid inhabitants. After all, it has been the setting for several movies featuring bizarre creatures, from King Kong and Godzilla to equally blood-curdling subterranean creepy-crawlies in Cloverfield and more. So, the news that more than half the 15,152 life forms detected during the making of a recent ‘ Pathomap’ of the city’s subway trains and stations are ‘unidentifiable’ only highlights the prescience of moviedom. Therefore, placing the headquarters of alien-hunting Men in Black in the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel ventilation shaft was nothing short of prophetic.

Scientists may point out that DNA databases still lack many genome sequences of entities expected in dank, dark places such as cockroaches and fungi species, but the sneaking suspicion that some evil superbugs not unlike those portrayed in disinfectant ads may be biding their time to swarm overground to attack will not be dispelled easily. Indeed, the makers of the next film in the series should consider the implication of the Pathomap picking up an overwhelming prevalence of cucumbers in the underground system, despite New Yorkers not displaying any particular predilection for the vegetable.